Maverick let out a low curse. His head fell against the side of the couch, and he reached back to grip Einstein’s leg.
Whatever Einstein had been about to say died in her throat.
She just stared at me with those wide eyes, her mouth hanging open as if I’d slayed her.
And I wanted to take it back.
“I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry, but you have to see the similarities. I needed you to stop and think. Realize who you’re talking to, who I am.” I pressed a hand to my chest. “I’m not some guy who takes advantage of women. You know that. If you stop and think, you fucking know that.”
Her eyes slipped shut on a slow blink.
“What’s happening is difficult and jumbled and a fucking mess, but trust me to know not to take advantage of any woman. Trust me to know what is on the line by crossing this one.”
“Okay,” she finally said.
“Does she know?” Maverick asked, turning to look at me.
I let out an exhausted breath and went to sit on one of the chairs in the living room. “Which part?”
“What the plan is when we find Zachary?” Ruthless vengeance filled his eyes. “Why we’re here.”
“She will tomorrow.”
“And how do you think she’ll take that?” Einstein asked, her focus already on her screen again.
“Not sure. There’s a lot we have to talk about. She just found out this morning that they were never married and feels a little betrayed because I didn’t tell her.”
Einstein glanced at Maverick before shooting me a look. “Considering your situation, I don’t know why you didn’t.”
I dragged my hands over my face and bent forward to rest my forearms on my legs. “Reasons I’ll have to explain to her when she lets me.”
“Right. Has she given any locations on where Zachary and Garret might be?” Maverick asked, leaning forward to, once again, open the bag of weapons.
“I don’t want any,” I said before he could offer again. “I have a gun in my room, another on me, and extra magazines placed around the suite. “I’d take you up on it if Sutton’s daughter weren’t in here with me, but she is, and she’s six.”
“Understood.”
“As for locations, I’ve asked. Kieran and Jess have asked.” My shoulders moved in a brief shrug. “Anywhere she can think of has been checked already. She doesn’t seem to know a lot about him since she spent so much time trying to avoid him.”
He nodded, accepting the answer almost as if he’d been expecting it. “Einstein pulled blueprints of the resort. Diggs and I are studying them in case shit comes to a head here. It’s a fucking nightmare, but . . .”
“He would be coming to us,” I assumed.
“Exactly.”
“The problem with this place is that there’s so many damn people. If Zachary’s men are here, Kieran and Jess wouldn’t know.”
“I’ve been doing facial recognition every day and running it against people we have in the files,” Einstein said. “And, you’re right, it’s a problem. We’re near their town and in a major city where a lot of their illegal dealings happen. That means most of their contacts live around here. And people come and go from the resort daily because of the golf course and spa and blah, blah, blah—including people in the files. I went back nearly a month before you brought the girls here, and this place is always littered with people on their payroll.”
“Do we leave—fuck, no. Never mind.” I let out a slow breath and bit back a laugh when Diggs snored himself awake.
“Did we get food?” he asked before he was even fully conscious.
“No,” Maverick murmured and then asked me, “Why can’t you leave?”
“We’re vulnerable if we do. It was enough of a risk moving them here, it isn’t worth it to be out in the open again when we don’t know where Zachary is, not when he has an entire cartel and thousands of people on their payroll who could be watching.”
Diggs snorted. “We have . . . us.”
“Speaking of,” Maverick said and then searched through a side pocket on the weapon’s duffel.
I snatched the balled-up black fabric from the air when he tossed it at me and felt my blood run cold.
“We all decided, and Dare made it official,” Einstein said, sitting back and smiling at me. “You’re one of us.”
“Um.” A breathless laugh crept up my throat as I unrolled the black bandana. “Yeah, I, uh . . . I’m kind of staring at my nightmare.”
The three of them laughed, but Einstein’s faded almost as quickly as it began.
Because she knew what I was seeing when I looked at that bandana.
It wasn’t just a decade of dreading when our rival gang would show, hidden in shadows and behind black bandanas. It was that night Johnny had nearly killed me while wearing one of these. It was watching Dare aim a gun at Lily, the girl I’d been charged with protecting for years, and killing Johnny instead.
His best friend.
But I knew what this meant. It was what Kieran, Dare, and Beck had been working toward for so long—a truce between us.
It was what Einstein had been doing by stitching our families together after Kieran and I had dissolved the Holloway Gang—creating one family.
It also meant we were putting a foot back into the life we’d sworn to leave.
Kieran and I had known it was inevitable when the mob had continuously pulled us back in after we’d all attempted to break away from that world.
Holding this bandana meant Dare had accepted it as well.
“We have a couple for Kieran and Jess too,” Einstein said softly. “After everything that’s happened the last couple months, there’s no point in continuing to deny what we are or that we’re in it together.”
“Means a lot.” I smiled my thanks. “But there’s no way in hell you’re gonna get us to call ourselves Borellos.”
Diggs and Maverick laughed.
Einstein only smiled. “Borellos or not, you’re officially Rebels.”
Sutton
My steps faltered when I left the bedroom the next morning.
It was still early, the sun hadn’t even risen, but Conor was there, putting coffees and bags onto the kitchen counter. Ones that looked similar to what Jess and Kieran had brought the day before.
He cleared his throat as he straightened. “I was gonna come wake you.”
His words from last night played in my mind again and again, filling me and leaving me more confused than ever.
I’d stayed pressed against the bedroom door last night, trying to choke back the overwhelming feelings from the day—God, the week—and trying to understand why it had hurt so damn bad to see Conor with Einstein. When he’d sided with her and asked me to leave.
It wasn’t as though I wanted to be in the room with people I didn’t know. I’d wanted answers from Conor.
And that was when I heard them . . . him and Einstein fighting about me.
“If I’ve put myself in this position, then you know it’s because she means something.”
Out of everything that had happened yesterday, that was the one thing I tried to hold tight to during the night. Everything else still felt like too much to sort through and deal with, and for some asinine reason, clinging to what he’d said helped me to keep the image of Conor and Einstein out of my head.
Walking out to see him talking with another woman who was beautiful in a wild, alluring kind of way that I could never compete with was shocking enough.
To find out who she was?
It didn’t matter that he had told me that she belonged to someone else, all I could think in that moment was what she had meant to him.
Still, he’d fought for me.
I grabbed the sides of my robe and wrapped them around myself, giving my hands something to do. “Were you . . .”
“Thought it would be better if we talked before Lexi woke up.”
I sucked in a stuttered breath and nodded, not knowing if I was ready for this but sure I w
anted every answer he could give me.
He handed me one of the coffees and asked, “Why are you up so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” It was short and vague, but at least it was partially true.
“Me either. Jess dropped off food on her way to see Einstein.”
My brows lifted as I brought the cup to my lips. I made some sort of confirming sound in my throat as I passed by him to sit in the living room.
“That isn’t fair, and you know it,” he said once he was seated near me.
“What?”
“That look you kept giving me last night, the one you just gave me. Like her being here is a betrayal.”
I swallowed past the knot in my throat and pulled my knees to my chest.
“You know nothing ever happened with her. You already know there is no story to tell.”
“I know,” I said quickly, preventing him from continuing. “I know, and I know that it isn’t fair because you’ve had to listen to the stories I’ve told you. But I . . .” A defeated breath broke from me.
“You what?”
“I’ve heard the way you say her name,” I whispered, laying my heart bare. “She means something to you, and when I walked out and saw the two of you right there? Jesus, it hurt in a way that didn’t make sense. This sickening jealousy spread through me, making me feel so stupid because I hardly know you and don’t have a claim on you at all.”
His bright eyes darkened with something intimate and raw. “You don’t?”
My shoulders sagged, because God knew I wanted to.
“Yesterday, I kept telling myself the distance you’d put between us was good,” he said roughly. “It was what we needed because we’d crossed a line we shouldn’t have. And then I’d see you, and whatever distance was between us would feel like too much. It killed me to know I was the reason it was there and the reason you weren’t looking at me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about Zachary?” I asked, the question no more than a murmur.
“The times it came up, there was always something in the way. Trust, you already finding out too much at once, us being interrupted.” His head slanted in a faint shake. “When you were panicking yesterday morning, I tried. I started to. Then Lexi came out of the room and Kieran and Jess showed . . .”
“You should have told me that first day.”
“The file I gave you to read,” he began carefully. “If you would’ve looked at it closely, you would’ve known.”
I stopped mid-sip. “What?”
“It’s how we found out. Your marriage certificate, did you see it?”
I remembered going through the file, scrolling right past the certificate. “Yeah?”
“It wasn’t signed,” he said gently, as if trying to make me understand something.
“What do you mean? I remember when Zachary and I went and signed . . .” The words died as Conor shook his head.
“It wasn’t signed by an officiant. No marriage certificates in the last couple of generations of the Tennessee Gentlemen have been signed. And none of them are registered with the state. From the labels on the scans, they were all hidden deep in the cartel’s attorneys’ files.”
I stared blankly ahead before asking, “What? Why, what does that mean?”
“We only have assumptions. If something happens, none of the women have any claim to money or businesses. Divorce is becoming more common. They’re trying to protect themselves. Smart for them, considering they’ve remained unknown all these years.”
My entire body caved as the reality hit me.
“I know it’s a lot.”
“That’s an understatement.” I thought for a second before asking, “Are my parents married?”
“Your dad’s generation is the first to do this.”
“My dad used to threaten my mom with divorce,” I said, reminding him of our conversation from days ago.
“I’m guessing your mom doesn’t know that she isn’t legally married. If your dad ever left her, he would have likely faked the divorce and she would have found herself with little to nothing without ever learning the truth.”
“This is all so surreal,” I whispered.
“Even if this wasn’t something they did, you and Zachary would technically no longer be married since he had you erased. You and Lexi don’t even exist.”
“How does that work . . . when you take us wherever we’re going?”
When this was over.
When I have to say goodbye to you forever.
Conor studied me, looking as if he were going to say something only to change his mind so many times before he said, “Einstein. She’ll make new identities, background stories, everything you need.”
I wondered for a second what those identities and background stories would consist of before realizing I didn’t want to know. There were more important things I needed to talk to him about.
“You said you would tell me everything.”
He nodded, sat back, and tapped his thumb on the lid of his cup a few times before clearing his throat. “The other night, I told you that you wouldn’t be so close to me if you knew what I wasn’t telling you about my life.”
My heart raced as I waited for him to continue.
Judging by the hesitation in his tone and worry etched in his eyes, I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to anymore.
“It’s because I’m not that different from Zachary.”
No. No, that was something I couldn’t believe. There wasn’t an ounce of Zachary in the man in front of me, I was sure of it.
When he didn’t offer anything else, I asked, “In what way?”
“I was in the Irish-American mob from the time I was thirteen. Kieran? He’s an assassin.”
If I hadn’t been positive I was sitting on the couch, I would’ve thought I was falling to the floor.
There wasn’t—no.
I saw him . . . I saw Conor and his tattoos and his unimaginably tall, muscled body. But he was good to his core. He wasn’t a criminal. He couldn’t be in the mob. God, how was this a thing? How was this even real life?
This was in movies and—
Hands gripped and squeezed my heart, stealing my next breath as the rest of what he’d said finally registered.
“You let an assassin near my daughter?”
“Sutton, wait.”
“Conor, you brought an assassin around my daughter.” I screamed the words. At least, it felt as if I did.
But they came out hoarse and strained and with hardly any weight behind them.
“Kieran was trained to be one from before his first birthday. He didn’t have a choice. He also hates that side of himself and uses his skills to do this,” he said, gesturing to me. “To save people. This is what he and Jess want to do.”
I gaped at him before repeating, “An assassin.”
“Yeah, one who’s on your side. Same as Maverick.”
I stilled, caught off guard. “What do you mean?”
“Maverick’s an assassin too.”
“No, he—” I blinked, trying to match the information being thrown at me with the people who had popped into my life over the last week. “But he looked like a person.”
“And I don’t?” Conor lifted his shoulders. “Diggs is a tracker. Einstein was their hacker. They’re mafia. We come from rival gangs that go back generations.”
“But . . . you’re friends. You work together.” I lifted a hand, trying to take back what I’d said and stop him from responding at the same time. “How is this even a conversation we’re having? This can’t be real.”
“You grew up in a cartel and never knew.” When I just gave him a hopeless look, he said, “None of us wanted that life anymore. The Borellos disbanded first, and the day Beck died, Kieran and I disbanded ours.”
“You can do that?”
“It’s complicated. But, yeah.”
I had a feeling I didn’t want to know the specifics of what made it complicated. “So, you’re no longer in the mob?”
>
He shifted back and ran his hands over his beard before raking them through his hair. “Also complicated. It’s hard to ever fully get out because people know who you are. Some shit happened a couple of months ago, and then Einstein was taken, so we’ve all had to acknowledge that old enemies will never let us be out. If anything comes at us now, we’ll be ready as one family.”
“That’s why you want me to trust them,” I assumed. “Because you’re all in the same, what, gang?”
“No. I want you to trust them because I trust all of them with my life. I’ve seen what they’ll do to protect and find each other. And with most of us in this to protect you and Lexi, the others will too.”
I dropped my stare to my legs and tried to wrap my head around everything, thankful that Conor didn’t push me to talk about it. That he left me with my thoughts.
“I don’t understand,” I said a while later. “I’ve read about the Tennessee Gentlemen and what they do. And you all come from mobs, but you own a private investigating company that specializes in helping women in bad situations? That doesn’t sound right to me. Everything I’ve seen in movies fits with the Tennessee Gentlemen. Drugs, weapons, crime in general.”
“All of that was us,” he said cautiously. “I told you about Dare the other day, he’s the human lie detector. He became the boss of the Borellos when he was just a teenager. Turned the entire thing around and started pulling them out of every illegal thing he could so he could shut it down. Kieran and Beck worked with him to take down our boss because he was a sick bastard who was into the worst kinds of things. We all wanted different lives, but like I said, there’s no escaping it.”
“Do you wish you could?”
His eyes drifted for a while. “The things I wanted to escape, we did. The rest, what we still face at times? It’s part of my life. It would be nice if the people I cared about didn’t get taken.”
My mouth pulled into a frown. “Right.”
“Sutton, you should know . . . the twins, Einstein, why they’re here.” He shifted uncomfortably, amplifying my own worry. “Kieran’s never not found someone. The fact that he hasn’t found Zachary yet is bad, and Maverick’s getting anxious.”
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